


I Never Knew

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, please note the warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 16:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8675203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: After, Hux muses on a broken victory.





	

He stares at the pyre, unsure why. There’s nothing there, really. It’s a collection of bones and already-rotting flesh. Clothes that cover everything, so the flesh the flames consumes remains hidden. And yet he stands here, feeling the heat, enduring the moment for as long as he can.

Tongues of fire erupt from the broken mask, and he’s sure that Ren would appreciate the circuit. Like grandfather, like grandson. He’ll put the masks together, once this is over and done with. When the heat has cooled and the fabric has found its new shape. He’ll put them together, and maybe he’ll look up at them, sometimes.

Or maybe not. 

It might hurt too much.

The Captain herds out the troopers, the remaining Knights come to pay their respects, or convince themselves he’s gone. Few and far between, and he’s sure now the Leader and their Master are both fallen, it will only be a matter of time before those soldiers of Ren leave, too. Before the Force retreats for another generation.

Funny.

Before, he’d have been delighted to consider that. Now… now he isn’t. He wishes the man had survived, wishes he could argue with him even one more time.

Hux’s gloved hands wring together, and he turns an exhausted face to meet Phasma’s masked one, and that lack of eye-contact reminds him just enough of Ren to… to…

“Sir.”  


“Yes, Captain?”  


“If I may… he would want you to go on. To rule.”  


He would. Hux knows that. Kylo Ren had never wanted a throne for himself, and only Hux’s ambition had pricked him into that final, doubly-deadly confrontation. 

He can still hear every last word of the message Ren had recorded, lying on his back, bleeding out. Hux can remember all the tiny confessions, the dreams he’d nurtured and kept to himself. Maybe they hadn’t been there in Kylo’s lucid moments, but his dying breaths had been of a life for them, together, away from all this.

Away from everyone.

He’d just wanted to be safe. To be loved. 

Hux’s hand holds that comm unit tightly. He should throw it onto the pyre, and destroy the dream he took from the man. _He_ had wanted this. He’d wanted power, absolute. He’d never asked Kylo what he’d wanted for himself, it was… selfish, and now Kylo had given him what he craved the most… only for him to realise it wasn’t really worth it, if it was only possible to rule alone.

A small ship. Running goods. Visiting nice places. Escaping the politics of the world. Laughter, love, freedom.

Hux doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t throw the sliver of Kylo’s voice away, either. He clips it to the lightsaber hilt, and clips that to his belt.

He’ll carry him, and the life they never had. His only way to thank him is to be miserable for the rest of his days.

He wishes he thought Kylo would approve, but it’s another way to let him down, even in death.


End file.
